Love and Devotion
by OCD ADD Goldfish
Summary: Aurora contemplates the new and young Muggle Studies Professor and her relationship with Severus Snape. COMPLETE. Post DH. Snape/Sinistra, Snape/Hermione mentions of past Sinistra/Lupin.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the world of Harry Potter. For the Second Season of The Quidditch League Competition and "The Happily Never After Challenge".

_Team_: Falmouth Falcons  
><em>Position<em>: Chaser 2

_Position phrase:_ " it was... utterly revolting"

**Prompts:** (gemstone) garnet; (quote) "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." -Gloria Steinem; (word) summer.

* * *

><p><strong>~x~X~x~<strong>

**Love and Devotion**

**~x~X~x~**

"_The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."  
>-Gloria Steinem<em>

Aurora Sinistra never _could_ sleep at night. It was one of the many reasons that the Astronomy position was so well suited to her, apart of course form the fact that she loved the stars, and found some comfort in the consistency of their presence.

However, it wasn't often that she took to wandering the halls of the castle at night. Even when the clouds blotted out the skies, she preferred the isolation of her tower.

But since the war's end... since that battle that nearly brought down the castle... perhaps even since Dumbledore had fallen off her tower, Aurora found herself taking to the corridors.

It was during one of these excursions in late autumn, that she found herself coming to a most unexpected and shocking sight.

Hermione Granger, who'd returned for her final year at Hogwarts and then chosen to stay on after as Muggle Studied professor as a personal favor to Minerva, which wasn't shocking, in spite of being in her early twenties as she was, after all, Aurora was no older than Hermione when she herself had started at Hogwarts).

What was shocking, was the young witch's position as she leant against a wall while a dark and familiar figure bent over her, his face ducked so low, that it was easy to guess what they were doing. Unless of course, Severus really was a vampire, which Aurora knew for a fact he was not.

A gasp inadvertently escaped the dark-haired witch, at which she promptly started to curse in her head, as the two figures jumped apart.

"Professor Sinistra!" Hermione cried in alarm, her face flushing red while Severus straightened and looked over at her with a stony face, though she could see the muscle in his jaw tick when he clenched his teeth and glared at her; though because of what she'd witnessed or because she'd interrupted, Aurora was not sure.

Aurora clenched her hands together, twisting the garnet solitaire ring, perched on her ring finger subconsciously, hoping desperately she wasn't staring like a wide-eyed idiot as Hermione Granger attempted at some sort of explanation.

Somewhere deep within her, though Aurora would deny it to her very dying breath, she felt a dark pulse of jealousy flare up inside her heart; brutal and almost staggering in it's force.

"We were just-"

"Oh, no need to explain to me, it's no concern to me," Aurora trilled, hoping she sounded cavalier, though her stomach was twisting with distaste and she desperately wanted to hex the sneer off of Severus' face that causes her own cheeks to color. "Excuse me."

X

Aurora slowly peeled her eyes open and groaned into the pillow her face was buried in. Flopping onto her back, she briefly threw her arm over her face and wondered why the hell she was awake as she scowled into the inside of her elbow, sensing due to her usually scarily accurate internal clock, that it was only seven in the morning, and that she'd only been asleep for four hours- in spite of the Dreamless Sleep potion she'd taken.

Opening her eyes after peeling her arm away, Aurora briefly paused to raise left hand before her eyes and stared contemplatively at the cursed ring sitting on her ring-finger.

Once- long ago when she was young and stupid- she'd looked at the ring... a simple golden band with the circular cut gemstone, so dark that it appeared purple, and felt her heart flutter at the sight. It wasn't much, but it was more than she'd expected.

Now, staring at the ring, all she felt was a familiar resentment that coiled so tightly around her heart, she thought it might just never beat again.

_Love... devotion_, she thought mockingly with a tinge of bitterness.

Dropping her hand to her side, Aurora stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the darkness in her heart, telling herself that she shouldn't be bothered by it.

That _that_ idiotic, romantic girl she'd been that summer day, had long ago disappeared- all her broken dreams and illusions having crushed her and buried her.

Aurora jumped up in bed, startled out of her thoughts when her bedroom door opened. Her eyes widened as she stared at Severus Snape, standing very boldly and with a sneer on his face as he looked at her disheveled hair and scantily clad body, though Aurora didn't register what she was wearing to bed, as she was too outraged by his presence.

"What are you doing?" she snapped, clenching her hands in her covers to stop herself from reaching for her wand.

"I did knock, but I know you're such a heavy sleeper when you _do_ sleep, that I merely invited myself in," Severus retorted, his tone incensing her further as he spoke to her in reasonable tones, as if she had no one else to blame but herself. "Do you want to perhaps cover yourself? Not that I mind the view, but I need you coherent and not addle-minded due to your embarrassment at your state of dress, or undress."

Aurora could feel heat cursing up her neck, but she attempted to regain her composure, knowing that Severus was merely trying to push her buttons.

Rising form the bed, she moved over to the armchair situated by one of the windows and pulled on her dressing gown, even as she retorted in cool tones, "Why should I be embarrassed? After all, it isn't anything you haven't seen before."

And in fact, her nightgown though quite short and thin, was not sheer nor so short that it didn't not cover everything that needed to be covered. Besides, Severus had seen her in _much_ less in the past. Hazard of their many flings over the course of the past eighteen years.

"Who can say how the minds of your irrational gender work."

"What do you want, Severus?" Aurora asked, whirling around, planting her hands on her hips as she glared at the man who'd been pressing all her buttons for over two decades.

"I wanted to discuss... last night," Severus replied, for the first time showing his discomfort as his face contorted with irritation.

Aurora arched a brow at that as she turned up her nose crossing her arms over her chest, "I don't see how your pathetic midlife crisis is any of my concern."

"It _isn't_ your concern," Severus replied through gritted teeth. "Just as it is no concern of- Hermione's- about _our_ past, which I'd like you to keep to yourself."

Aurora raised a brow at that, her eyes widening slightly in surprise.

"You mean you haven't told her?"

"Of course not!"

And no, Aurora supposed, Severus wouldn't have wanted to. After all, Severus didn't discuss his past with anyone, not even Aurora, and she'd been there for the majority of it. They had been in school together, in the same year and house, been friends even before leaving school- and anytime Aurora brought up the past, it only incurred Severus' rage.

"I know you don't know a lot about women, Severus,"Aurora started in dry tones, "but those kinds of secrets are the kind that break relationships."

Severus arched a brow at her, while Aurora flushed, wondering why the hell she was giving Severus relationship advice.

"Besides," she went on, pushing aside her discomfort, "Why should I be inclined to do you such a favor?"

Although, it wasn't as if she was going to go chatting with Miss Granger about her personal life.

"Oh, I think it's only fair; after your affair with Lupin, you owe me, _sweetheart_," Severus spat venomously, before turning to head towards the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Aurora sighed as she sunk into her armchair feeling drained.

Though they often fell out with each other and carried on affairs in those periods of separation, they were never anything serious and one way or other, they always returned to each other, even in spite harboring resentment... even in spite of knowing that their breaking was as inevitable as the sunrise.

Aurora wasn't sure why they continued the vicious cycle. She sometimes thought that in part, it was Severus' extreme possessiveness; that they both resided in the castle where as big as it was, it simply wasn't big _enough_; and finally, though Aurora couldn't admit it to herself, she still loved the man- infuriating as he was.

_And he all but compared Miss Granger to Remus_, Aurora thought with a shuddering breath, placing her head in her hands as the significance of that bowled her over like a rose in a hurricane.

X

"What is _this_?" Severus hissed as he slammed the door of her classroom open, causing her to jump. Aurora looked up and winced as Severus slammed the heavy oak door behind him, before striding over to her desk and dropping a few sheafs of parchment onto her desk.

Aurora stared at the papers momentarily, subconsciously twisting the garnet ring on her finger in her lap even as she looked up at Severus with a cool expression.

"They're divorce papers, Severus. Surely you recognize them, after all, they're not the first time I've sent them to you,"Aurora retorted tartly, even as her heart started to beat so hard in her chest, she thought that surely Severus would see the indentation on her chest.

"And what makes you think that I'll sign them now, when I never have before?" Severus snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

Aurora raised a brow.

"Well I thought as you and Miss Granger seem to be quite serious," it was four months now, the longest Severus had ever tolerated any woman... _other than herself and-_ "That you'd finally grant me the divorce I've been asking for... for- what is it now- twenty years?"

They'd married at nineteen, separated almost a year later. Aurora thought to never see him again, and had sequestered herself at Hogwarts as the Astronomy Professor shortly after. She hadn't expected that a mere year and a half later, Severus would join the staff, and continue to plague her days- where they from time to time, even lived as husband and wife.

"I don't know how it hasn't gotten through your head," Severus hissed venomously, eyes flashing as he clenched the edge of her desk and leaned menacingly forward, "But I'm _never_ giving you a divorce. You're _mine_!"

Aurora felt a shiver skip down her spine and a flare of heat in her abdomen as she met Severus' almost manic gaze. It was_... utterly revolting_ how his possessive attitude _didn't_ offend her as it should. How his insane, irrational and completely incomprehensible need to hold on to her and never let her go, made her feel ridiculously intoxicated with desire.

After Severus left, Aurora let out a shaky breath as she leant almost boneless back in her chair, staring down at the ring- wondering if it would ever be able to come off.

"I need a drink," Aurora sighed to herself.

X

"You dated Remus Lupin?" Hermione asked incredulously.

When Aurora invited herself to drinks with Septima, Poppy, Rolanda, Pomona and Minerva, she hadn't expected the invitation to be extended to their new Muggle Studies Professor. But as she had lost count of her Firewhiskey's long ago, Aurora was beyond the point of caring about drinking with her husband's mistress. Beyond the point of caring about anything, truly.

Aurora smiled fondly. "For a time when we were sixth and seventh years, and we picked up again for a time when he returned to teach," during the period of time, when Aurora had given up hope on Severus when she realized that next to Lily Potter, she wouldn't be able to hold a candle, even though she was considered by others the most beautiful Slytherin girl of their year.

"Why did you break up?" Hermione asked, her curiosity not dampened and perhaps helped along with the two glasses of wine she'd had.

"His lycanthropy... he kept it a secret when we were students, and he broke up with me thinking I was better off-" and later because Severus had discovered them and then proceeded to sabotage the relationship by telling Remus that she was his wife and to keep his filthy paws off.

"And because her husband didn't like it," Rolanda boomed in with a roaring laugh, admonished quickly by Minerva while Poppy blushed and giggled behind a hand, her cheeks rosy with drink.

"You were married?" Hermione asked, warm brown eyes wide.

"Only technically," Aurora responded. Somewhere in her mind, warning bells were ringing, but she ignored them as she took a deep drag of the amber liquid in her glass. "I've been asking for a divorce most of my marriage and we're separated..."

"When they're not in each other's bed!"

Aurora moved to shove Rolanda, but missed the blonde flight instructor, causing her to cackle all the more.

"Why won't he give you a divorce?" Hermione asked, completely intrigued in spite of herself.

"Because he's a stubborn, obsessive, possessive misanthrope," Aurora responded with a roll of her eyes before getting up to pour herself another drink, completely missing the furrowing of the young witch's brow.

X

Aurora felt her stomach swoop and lurch when a hand clenched on to her upper arm and tugged, wrenching her up into a sitting position. She might have felt the soreness of her shoulder, if she suddenly weren't so stunningly nauseated with her head pounding as if twenty bludgers flown run through it.

"What did you _do_?!"

Aurora blinked her eyes open, in spite of recognizing that voice. Through eyes were disoriented by more than just sleep, she stared at Severus' furious face in confusion.

"What time is it?" she asked, still feeling a little drunk. Her internal clock was telling her it was just past four in the morning, which meant she'd only been asleep for about two hours.

"You told Granger about our marriage after I specifically told you not to!"

"I didn't tell her we were married," Aurora frowned, though her head was fuzzy as she pulled her arm out of Severus' grasp and scooted away from him as much as her bed would allow.

"You told her enough that she figured it out. She came to me, demanding to know if you were my wife and then demanding to know why I haven't given you a divorce!"

Aurora blinked sleepily before looking down at herself. Distantly, she noticed that she'd gone to sleep in only her underthings and that when she'd scooted up the bed, the sheets and covers had fallen away. She should cover up, she thought blearily, but was too exhausted to want to do anything but get rid of Severus and just go back to sleep.

"So she chucked you?" Aurora asked, looking up and watching as his jaw clenched. She shook her head and sighed, leaning back against her headboard and shutting her eyes. "I told you that secret would come back and bite you. Although, I don't know what you expected considering Miss Granger is the marrying type, and you can't marry anyone if you refuse to first divorce me. So this was going to happen eventually. Personally, I always believed Miss Granger would become a Weasel... Wesley... Weasley?"

Aurora shook her head before maneuvering herself back under her covers and planting her head in the pillow, shutting her eyes.

"What are you doing?" Severus asked sharply. "I'm not done!"

"Severus, I'm still drunk and very tired," Aurora said through a yawn, looking up tiredly and for a moment, she saw Severus' anger falter; suddenly he became that painfully awkward teenage boy she so loved and she couldn't help smiling softly. "You know... you're welcome to join me," Aurora offered in soft, teasing tones, moving slightly back and opening the covers. When Severus didn't move and merely stared at her like she was insane, she merely shrugged. "Or not," she said, turning around and curling on her other side, shutting her eyes.

She was almost asleep, when she felt him move to lay behind her and wrapping a possessive arm around her waist, pulling her back flush against his front.

She smiled but did not turn, merely making herself comfortable and lacing her left hand with his, briefly casting a look down at her garnet engagement ring on her hand.

_Love and devotion_- that's what the garnet stood for and as she drifted off to sleep, Aurora wondered for the millionth time if Severus had known that's what it stood for, when he picked the ring out and given it to her all those years ago.

_**~FIN~**_


End file.
